Oh. My. God. (no, seriously)

I never thought I'd say this but if this project ever got off the ground I would totally find myself buying a Rob Liefeld comic book. Click the pics to check out larger versions of Liefeld's Old Testament!!!

Newsflash! You can make FASERIP open!

Phil Reed is offering to make an OGL version of the engine that powered the original Marvel Superheroes roleplaying game. He's doing this ransom style, just like Greg Stolze has done for several projects. If he can get $1000 in pledged donations, he'll write the game and distribute it as a free PDF. I've put ten bucks in the hat, and I'm challenging all my readers who are FASERIP fans to do the same. Let's make this happen, people! Click here to hop on the bandwagon and make your pledge.

For $1,000 in donations Philip Reed will take two weeks to create a game titled "FASERIP." This will be a new, free, professionally-produced game that is opened so that other publishers may create supplements compatible with it.

FASERIP will be compatible with the old Basic and Advanced games that inspired it; the game's sole purpose is as an open source document for publishers. Players can use the game to play, but they'll gain little new value from the free product planned. It is the new supplements that can be created that will be of true value to everyday players.

FASERIP, if funded, will be created and released as a free PDF. After 30 days all feedback will be considered and the file updated at which point it will also be made available in print at cost.

NOTE: No work has been started. FASERIP will not be created until after it is funded.

If you have any questions about FASERIP please contact roninartspresident@yahoo.com.

Thanks to Chris at Dorkland for this tip!

Great Random Charts from RPG History, volume I

Today's post is the beginning of a series that will go into at least 3 volumes and may turn out to be an ongoing affair here. Because I love stupid random die charts and it's fun to share. Our first entry goes all the way back to original Dungeons & Dragons book 3, The Underworld & Wilderness Adventure. This one is quick, fun, and still totally useable today. Here's a cleaned-up and reformatted-for-your-TV version of the random castle inhabitants chart from page 15 of OD&D book 3.

RANDOM CASTLE OWNER AND MINIONS
Instructions: Roll d6 for castle owner, then d4 for owner's brute squad

1) Lord (Fighter level 9+)

1. d8 Champions (Fighters 8)
2. d6 Heroes (Fighters 4) on Griffons
3. d10 Myrmidons (Fighters 6)
4. d4 Giants

2) Superhero (Fighter 8)

1. d8 Myrmidons (Fighters 6)
2. d4 Heroes (Fighters 4) riding Rocs
3. d4 Ogres
4. d10 Swashbucklers (Fighters 5)

3) Wizard (Magic-User 11+)

1. d4 Dragons
2. d4 Chimeras
3. d4 Wyverns
4. d4 Basilisks
   

4) Necromancer (Magic-User 10)

1. d4 Chimeras
2. d6 Manticores
3. d12 Lycanthropes
4. d12 Gargoyles

5) Patriarch (Lawful Cleric 8+)

1. d20 Heroes (Fighters 4)
2. d6 Superheroes (Fighters 8)
3. d10 Treants
4. d8 Heroes (Fighters 4) riding Hippogriffs

6) Evil High Priest (Chaotic Cleric 8+)

1. d10 Trolls
2. d6 Vampires
3. d20 White Apes
4. d10 Spectres

According to the rules, each castle also has 3d6 x 10 regular guards, half crossbowmen in light armor and half melee guys in heavier armor. In modern terms these guys would be low level Warriors.

Each castle owner also had a chance of some henchmen/cohort types. Fighters had a 25% chance of a Magic-User level d4+4 and a 50% chance of a Cleric level d4+2. Magic-Users got a 25% chance of a Fighter level d4+4 and a 50% chance of an apprentice Magic-User of level d4+3. Clerics had a fifty/fifty chance of havinf d6 clerical assistants of levels d4+3 each.

In a modern 3.x campaign a little bit of liberal interpretation can really stretch these charts. You could use any kind of fighty classes in place where a Fighter is called for and ditto for various arcane specialties and the Magic-User results on the chart. And anyone who rolls up a Necromancer and stats up a plain Wizard 10 is just being boorish. Give that dude the power to raise up undead armies! For extra silliness whenever a Superhero comes up on the chart, model the character on someone like Batman or Spider-man. "Welcome to stately Wayne Castle. I am Sir Bruce."

metal mini mania

Right before their last move my sister-in-law and her hubby gave me some old metal miniatures. They played D&D and a few other games back in the day, but these days their gaming is largely of the German and MMORPG variety. Rob played in three campaigns of mine, but that was before the big move up north. Most of the figures are painted, but I'm going to attempt to paint the rest. In fact, I've decided that I'm going to paint these babies up before I buy any new metal figures. The idea is to get some practice before I go and ruin some nice Reaper figures with half-assed paint jobs.

This skeleton band from Ral Partha was sold as "The Grateful Undead", if I recall correctly. I didn't paint this, I just thought it would be cool to share a pic. It's from a small line of comedic fantasy figures. As a kid think I owned two pieces from the line, the John Belushi Samurai and the three-headed 3 Stooges troll.

These golems are early nineties Ral. They were primed and the clay golem partially painted when I got 'em. The flesh golem has some stitchwork that's going to be a challenge to paint. It's so fine you can't see it in this shot. Part of me is tempted to try and modify these figures a little. I'd like to put weapons in the flesh golem's hands and maybe get him a backpack. That way he could be a Frankenstein adventurer for Encounter Critical. I kinda want to repaint the clay golem's diaper to be a bright purple. Then I could use some putty or something to give him some hair and paint the skin green. But those sorts of mods are a bit ambitious right now. I think instead I'll just paint up some golem dudes.

I'm pretty sure these little lizardish orcs were originally released by R-Kiiv a.k.a. Archive. What's the proper procedure for broken off weapons?

A close-up of one of the orcs. That polearm blade is substantial.

A different polearm wielding orc by another company. I think this wide-face tusk-mouthed fellow is an early Ral Partha. A lot of stuff needs to be trimmed from the mold lines before he can be painted.

The lumpish thing on the left appears to be someone's idea of an Intellect Devourer. The body of the beast is brain-like, but someone either misunderstood the critter description or thought it could be improved, because a lizard head has been added by the sculptor. The other guy is a Games Workshop wizard's familiar. He's a furry little goblinoid carrying a sack. Very cool.

It's a shame this picture turned out so fuzzy. These guys are cool. They're Blemmyes or Blemmyae, a legendary race of beings with no heads and faces on their chest. I think they worship Arnim Zola. Skull & Bones, the d20 pirate book Gareth-Michael Skarka worked on, has stats for these dudes, but they don't quite fit these figures. These creatures are clearly Large size, but the Blemmyae from S&B are only medium. Still, that's a good place to start.

I paid 50 cents for what?!

Shopping at the comic store Saturday was tricky, as both my daughter and my nephew were with me. Elizabeth immediately picked up a comic that had Superman fighting a gorilla on the cover. She then proceeded to wander about the store, unintentionally walking out of my field of vision something like 800 times. Meanwhile Cameron was completely overstimulated by all the colorful comics and just couldn't pick anything out. I ended up getting him a handful of Transformers back issues I stumbled across while riffling through the 50 cent bin. Between the bargain bin search and trying to keep track of the kids and half-listening to an argument my sister was having in the game store (which shares space with the comic shop) I ended up getting a tad bit distracted. So when I got home I found that in addition to JLU, Transformers, Young Heroes in Love, Groo the Wanderer, and a bunch of crappy bronze age Marvel mags, I had unintentionally purchased this:


Man, this thing is like a time machine. Extremely wordy narration boxes, Liefieldian pencils, a villain with ill-defined but world-shattering powers. It's like half the comics I bought in college distilled down to one book.

But it's the cover that kills me. In particular, Nightcrawler. When Spider-man does that spread legs thing it works, because his costume isn't designed like Borat's swimsuit. That pose and that costume work together in perfect harmony to emphasize Nightcrawler's package, or rather his comic code-approved lack of package. Which only confuses me more. It's like this cover is trying to remind me that Nightcrawler has no genitals.

Eat hot plasma, sathar scum!

Yesterday was the second meeting of C-U Run Club '07, our rotating-GM game group where everyone takes a turning running the game of their choice. My bud Doug was up to bat yesterday, and his game of choice was d20 Future, using setting material culled from Star Frontiers. Last week I wrote to the other players "I hope to play one of those silly bug aliens and maybe zap a sathar with a laser!" Not only did I get to play one of the vrusk (the setting's silly bug aliens), but our foes were space pirates and the evil wormlike Sathar. I didn't have a laser, instead my guy packed a fully automatic plasma pistol powered by an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back. How cool is that?

The background story Doug whipped up was perfect for a high octane single session. We were all members of Department 7, the black ops division of Star Law. In the setting the Rangers of Star Law are like Captain America as Science Police. When their good guy nicey-nice methods don't work, they call in the literally take-no-prisoners hard case psychos of Department 7. So basically we had all the perogatives of space cops, and none of the usual responsibilites. In short, we were playing Judge Dredd in outerspace. For my tastes that sort of a set-up is too fascistic for extended play. I know first hand from running such a campaign that if you give PCs that much author-i-tay things quickly get ugly. But as an excuse for an afternoon's worth of Bad People Fighting Worse, the premise was aces.

It was very cool to see Doug behind the screen. He was the only player to be at the table for all 18 months of my Wild Times campaign, the totally out of hand D&D epic gestalt game where the PCs fought bad guys until the universe melted. He's currently a player in my still-getting-pur-skylegs Eberron game. Doug and I play together in the World of Alidor. His sneaky ranger is the subtle tactician archer and my shouty barbarian is the party meatshield. But this is the first time playing together where he wore the viking hat and I was the player.

And it was cool. Doug pulled a fabulous bait-and-switch on us right at the start. He handed us incomplete, half-assed 1st level character sheets and told us we were first time smugglers about to meet our boss to get our first mission. Only when the jig was up did he hand out our lavishly constructed 13th level black-ops badasses. Then we shot up a cantina full of space pirates. Hot damn! Another thing that I really liked was the way that Doug seamlessly integrated old school Star Frontiers setting material with new school sci-fi trappings. For example, the nefarious space worm menace was planning on using a nanite terraformation bomb to rewrite the local planet's biosphere to be more Sathar friendly. How cool is that?

I should note that the 'network externalities' thingy inherent to the d20 system really shined through, as no one had any significant problems playing this session cold, even with a tricked out high level sci-fi character. Heck, Kathleen hadn't played anything d20 since 2nd edition AD&D and she stepped up to the plate and ran an extremely effective psionic PC. Of course, she's also really smart and a veteran player. And Dave and Stuart were very entertaining, playing Johnny Octagon, a dralasite martial artist and Coco, a gun fu yazirian respectively. Stuart was gliding around Rocket J. Squirrel style, a pistol in each claw, and Dave used one of his blobby pseudopods like a swingline to fly through a windshield and kick a Sathar in the face. Hi-yah!

So yeah, I got to play a cool game with some cool people. My insect alien got to roast bad guys with his plasma pistol. Good times, good times. Next up for the Run Club, yours truly will be attempting a James Bond 007 caper. It's 1985 and the PCs are licensed to rock.

Attention Doctor Rotwang!

and anyone else who likes Mutated Wooky Warriors:

http://www.badmovies.org/movies/warspace/index.html